NY Police Spied On Protestors Worldwide

I didn’t know N.Y.P.D could not only go across the country doing intelligence gathering, but into different countries too.

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the departmentÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the departmentÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œR.N.C. Intelligence Squad,ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚? the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

So they found out a lot, right? Got some good intelligence that stopped a terrorist attack or some potentially serious crimes?